The present invention pertains to an elevator device and a roller guide assembly, specifically, to an improved roller guide that is attached to a car so as to guide the car in the vertical direction along a rail.
A conventional elevator is equipped with a drive means for moving a car up and down along a hoistway and a guide means for preventing the car from becoming displaced or tilted within a plane in order to move the car up and down stably. As for the configuration of the aforementioned drive means, a drive machine is provided at the top of the hoistway, hoist ropes are placed around said drive machine, and the car is suspended at one end of said rope while a counterweight is suspended at the other end so as to balance them, whereby the car and the counterweight are moved up and down in the opposite directions through traction as the drive machine is driven. In addition, the aforementioned guide means comprise a pair of guide rails that are provided near outer side surfaces of the car at opposite positions on the hoistway, and multiple roller guide assemblies that are provided with rollers that contact the respective guide rails and which are positioned above and below the car near its side surfaces.
Japanese Patent No. 4050466 describes a conventional elevator device. As shown in FIG. 1, in this elevator device, the hoistway is provided with pairing guide rails 16 along the vertical direction. On the other hand, 4 roller guide assemblies 20 are provided at lateral positions above and below car 12. As shown in FIG. 2, each roller guide assembly 20 is equipped with 3 rollers 22 that engage with guide rail 16, and each roller 22 is provided in a horizontally swingable manner. That is, rotary shaft 34 is provided on base 40 in a rotatable manner; the base end part of lever arm 26, which protrudes upward, is connected to one end of said rotary shaft 34; rollers 22 are supported in a rotatable manner at the front end part of said lever arm 26 via arm end 30 and roller shaft 24; and suspension assembly 42 is provided so as to bias said rollers 22 toward guide rail 16. In addition, friction damping assembly 44 serving as a damper is provided at the other end of rotary shaft 34.
Elevator system and component designers face the ongoing challenges of reducing costs of elevator systems and components, and fitting elevator systems and components within tighter space constraints. In many circumstances, these objectives can be considered incompatible and unattainable without significant innovation.